REDAMANCY [h.s. au]

40

"My happy involves a lot of
seeing you happy."
- Jennifer Rose

⭑Holland⭑

~two weeks later~

"You alright?" Zoey asks me as I yawn for about the 15th time in the last hour. It's 11 am and I've already had two cups of coffee to try to combat the sleepiness that won't ease up.

"Yeah, just tired," I remark.

She's carrying a box of new releases across the floor while I'm slumped over the computer at the counter, trying to write a coherent email to a customer that's looking for some obscure book, but I can't seem to get past the first two sentences without losing my train of thought.

Luckily, there's no one at the store right now, so we're just taking it easy—doing remedial tasks as we both try to shake off the Monday morning blues.

"What the hell are you doing that's making you so tired?" And then she rolls her lips in before adding, "Actually, don't answer that. I don't wanna hear about how Harry keeps you up all night."

I manage to let a lazy laugh out at that. "Oh, shut up," I joke. She's under the impression that we're like a couple of teenagers who've just found out what sex is.

"What! It's true," she says as her eyes are cast down at the stack of new romance releases. Her slender legs stretch across the dented wood floor until she stops in her tracks, turns to me slowly, realization dawning in her brown eyes. "Holland...."

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?" It's like half concern, half suspicion. And even though I'm unbelievably tired, the look is like a shock to my system, waking me up. She stares at me, lips parted, wanting to say something, but nothing coming out quite yet. "You're scaring me, Zoe! What is it?"

"Are you—could you be...pregnant?" She whispers the word pregnant, even though there's not a soul in the shop with us.

My body stills and it's like Zoey, the shop, the world around me falls until I'm left confined in the walls of my mind.

It's only been a month since I stopped taking my birth control—the birth control that I've been taking since I was 18 and I figured it'd take my body at the very least a couple months to get back to its natural cycle after years and years of filling it with synthetic hormones. I haven't had a period, but I've chalked that up to my body adjusting and wasn't expecting to have it back for a bit.

I guess I technically could be, but the chances of that being the case are slim, right?

I descend from the thoughts, the world coming back to me. Zoey eying me suspiciously, waiting for me to respond. "I—I don't know..."

I know that Harry and I have thrown all caution out the window, so it shouldn't be a shock that I might be. But I thought I had more time until this happened.

"Well...have you been like...careful?" She asks.

"Not really," I admit sheepishly. She's my best friend, but it still feels almost wrong admitting that out loud.

"Not really? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Like not careful at all." I bite my knuckle and close my eyes, not wanting to see her face at my answer.